“What we’re trying to do is connect farmers and their stories with people here at home in the U.S.” Jackson said. “We’ll imbed ourselves with coffee farmers during the height of the coffee harvest, and we’ll assist them harvesting and processing their product.”

“When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, it’s the stories that people remember,” Jackson said. “It comes down to working with communities, solving problems and building trust. It’s about people’s lives.“

A Farmer, at the end of his harvest day, pauses for a portrait along a harvest trail in Java, Indonesia.

As the application deadline for the Indonesia Coffee and Storytelling course approaches (April 11th) we are shifting into high gear raising scholarship funds. Both of us who lead Forest Voices relied on scholarships and financial aid to get through college, so we understand what it’s like to be on a tight student budget, and we want to help you out as much as we can.

It’s easy to look at a program fee or airline ticket and be discouraged if you don’t happen to have those funds on hand. But that’s no reason to rule out an experience like this; we feel strongly that a life-changing experience is worth some creative searching in order to find funds. We do it for our own projects, and we are doing it right now to help raise scholarship funds for this program. We have a long list of people and organizations we are reaching out to with requests for help and we hope you will join us in that collaboration.

For students who may be applying for scholarship funds and also working hard to raise funds on their own, we recognize that the $500 application fee may be a barrier. Because of that we have waived that fee for students applying for scholarships. Please let us know when you submit your application, and we will be in touch about funding strategies and options.

Based on our experience, we’ve put together this list of suggestions of ways you may be able to to find some support for the program fee and airfare to join the Storytelling for Action course this summer:

Approach faculty and deans your department or college. Explain the project, how you will benefit from it, and ask if they have ways to support you or ideas of where you could apply for funding. If you make a strong case, you may be surprised at the resources available that may not have been advertised.

Meet with yourfinancial aid office to talk about your resources and options. You may be able to apply part of this year’s or next year’s financial aid package if you take the course for credits. If you have an AmeriCorps education award, you can definitely apply that. (You can contact us for more details on how that works.)

Approach local businesses and ask if they will sponsor you. Is there a roaster or coffee shop in your hometown that is proud of its fair trade offerings or the origins of its coffee? A bookstore that values good storytelling and hosts community events like readings and talks? Offer to supply some images and stories or give a presentation when you return, in thanks for their sponsorship and help.

Ask your family and friends to contribute directly, even in small amounts. Noah and I have asked our own parents, siblings, cousins, friends and colleagues to contribute to your scholarship fund. Many of them have said yes, and they don’t even know you! How many people would have to make a $10 or $20 donation, in order to meet your needs? Consider hosting an event and sharing a meal to make your case to family and friends, asking for contributions. We have some ways we can help you with these kinds of efforts, too--providing roasted coffee or prints to offer as thanks to substantial donors.

Reach out to your social network via Facebook, Kickstarter or Indiegogo. We funded our first coffee roaster by offering shares from our own Facebook network and have friends who have successfully crowd sourced a variety of initiatives. As people who have both run and contributed to campaigns, it feels great to be part of something. You might be surprised at how happy people are that you've asked!

Regardless of who you are approaching, here are a few tips to help make your ask more effective:

1. Share some of the course materials with the person you are asking for support to help them understand the program and how you will benefit from it. You can download a course flyer and a copy of the syllabus from links on the course page, as well as sharing the course page and stories from the blog about the farmers we’ll work with. If you are meeting with a business, or someone you don't know directly, make sure you make an appointment and prepare in advance with materials to share.

2. Lay out a clear budget of what level of financial support you need so you are making a specific request and people can see how their contribution fits in. This also helps you understand how many people you’ll need to pitch in, at what level, and where to focus your efforts.

3. Be prepared with some ideas of how you could give back in thanks for the support. Remember, storytelling skills and good stories are at the heart of this course, so you will come home with some great material. As you talk with potential sponsors, offer to share some of the images you capture, and to write a newsletter article or blog post for their organization or business. If you find an external, large donor that is not a direct family or friend, we are willing to part with some of our direct trade coffee to help seal the deal. Contact us about this. Even Noah, on his recent visit to Indonesia, engaged in a little bit of fundraising work between all the farmer visits and logistics-arranging. Remember, just like us working with farmers, you also need to build trust with your supporters!

4. Recognize that not everyone you ask will be able to help out right now, and that’s okay. Be sure to thank them for meeting with you or listening to your request, and ask if they have any contacts or connections who might be able to help.

Roasted on Valentine's day and delivered February 15th: the very first jar of Forest Voices Community Coffee in Missoula.

​We get pretty excited about roasting coffee for our friends and neighbors. Remembering how our Forest Grove coffee shares program brought us a new role in that town, we're excitedly looking forward as we start up the Missoula version of Forest Voices Community Coffee. The second spring delivery will happen later this week, but there is still time to join in.

Mikaila Way, then a senior environmental studies major from Pacific University, joined us as a volunteer in January of 2012 on a harvest workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico. In these excerpts, she describes a typical evening with our friends and host famers after a day of coffee picking, and talks abut how her time with Thomas and Elvira influenced how she views coffee.

Up on the hill at night, it's the shape of the valley, the familiar bowl from the shores of the old Lake Missoula that lets me know I am home. Geologists tell me that when the ice dam broke and drained the lake twelve thousand years ago, the flood ran with the force of sixty Amazon rivers. A whole watershed was re-shaped, exposing the rich valley floor that we've landed on, our farmland. While I know that this, here, is the most stable base I've had in years, there is still a certain uneasiness of footing.

This unnamed hill I run is the backside Blue Mountain, and I'm often almost as alone as I can be. Dark-running on the hill, I feel as well as see the late night jets funneling in: first from Seattle and then another, later, from Denver pushing the cold air mass down around me. Home lights blink from the old lake bed below, while the erratic red zig-zag of the LED on the husky’s collar follows its own path, guided by the land, smells, walkers’ tracks from earlier in the day, scents of deer and foxes in search of food.

At this time of year, weather and terrain change quickly, and all of a sudden, when I have my headlamp off and am guided by nothing other than the ambient light, or feel, it's a surprise to transition to the grass, and then frozen soil, and then back again. I have learned to watch treelines, suspect ice, and not be surprised to see the light of a jet, coming into the valley floor low. On the downhills, sometimes I get going too fast, in the sea of darkness and it’s all just strange lights: homes, jets, and a running husky blur together. It can be slightly out of control, just hoping to hit each stride and push off again on firm footing, but also feel like I could somehow take off completely.

Forested Slopes Over Sumatra, Indonesia

I have known this sensation before. Years ago I lived in a bamboo house in the Philippines. At night, when all the village fishermen had gone to bed, I would swim in the bay outside my house. Bioluminescient plankton, reacting to the current of my own body, flashed light ahead of me and behind me. The glow, especially with the reflecting stars on the bay, formed trails that seemed to guide me, not unlike an airport runway. I'd feel as if I was getting ready to take off.

Now that feeling comes, not just in the running or swimming, but in the entire plan, all the ways I try to navigate a distinct life and livelihood. There’s a certain blur, a mix of excitement and terror, when take-off approaches. Soon, we will board a plane to Sumatra, Indonesia. We are going there to get everything sorted for our first full student course in May. We’ll meet with village storytellers, conservationists, and others who are work in the landscape, on their own small coffee farms. These are wonderful, indigenous people restoring forests and farmlands. We’ll ask them to open their homes to students wishing to learn. These farmers form part of a fabric of pathways, on the backside of another mountain, far from where I run here. I think I respect them so much because they are also guided by their own visions and lights - some electric, some oil candles that burn into the night.

In the preparation, in getting ready for our own flight, there it is again--the moment when you are racing down the hillside, or trusting your feet to find the path through a coffee garden at night. There might be stars or lit houses for guidance, might just be the feel of the footpath on the slope, the knowledge that it's going to lead somewhere. But really, I suppose, it's just raw belief. Belief in much more than the details and preparations, or even the return with bags laden with green coffee: belief in becoming part of our own community, landing and settling more deeply, more fully engaged. There is a wonder and a terror in the that pre-flight moment just before takeoff, that is so important for so many of us.

We are calling this batch of coffee the Pre-Flight Roast, for the imminent and very literal flight to Indonesia in less than two weeks, but also for that sensation: the feeling of quickening, rushing, as everything gathers speed. This one is for taking big steps, and getting things done you might only have dreamed of. It's for the falling and still keeping the motion, guided by the magical combination of history, signs from the landscape, knowledge, and intuition. This roast is for the farmers who can look at a field and vision a food forest or a berry patch where neighbors might gather seasons later. This roast is for new friends and neighbors: those we meet slowly through knocks on the door, and those we meet abruptly, when the husky barges through their door looking for food and friendship of her own. Share this with your own friends, people in your office, or like us, with farmers in Sumatra.

Why we write. On our home farm, we see connections between what we do and the farmers and people we work with around the world. We share these adventures here to invite you into the learning and community, regardless of where you are located.